How hard is it to live in NYC?

It depends on where you live, but the answers are pretty obvious.

Most people think it is very hard to live in New York City. The cost of rent and virtually everything else is exorbitant. Taxes are by far the highest in the country. Even commuting is a chore, right?

Not exactly—or at least it depends on where in the city you live, according to a very interesting data analysis by The New York Times Upshot team called "The hardest places to live."

The Upshot considered six factors that its research showed were relevant and for which county-level data was available: education, household income, unemployment, disability, life expectancy and obesity.

Using the map, I found the rankings for the five boroughs (listed below) and the quintile of the ranking (a frequent way to characterize statistics like this). Manhattan is the easiest borough to live in, and 365th easiest nationwide, placing it in the top fifth of all counties. The Bronx is harder to live in than all but 26% of counties, according to the analysis.

County ranking

Quintile

Manhattan

365

1st

Queens

390

1st

Staten Island

601

1st

Brooklyn

1,306

3rd

Bronx

2,324

4th

This is a classic good news/bad news story and it is a snapshot, not an analysis over time, which would show enormous improvement in the Bronx on life expectancy. But it does show the gap between various parts of the city.